There are a lot of fantastic things that come from the generalized unselfishness exhibited by hockey players. They’re sports-wide leaders in “Aw shucks” quotes and tend to be generous when it comes to charitable causes (and also seem generous enough to lay their bodies in front of 100 mph slap shots). Those are all great things, but sometimes that attitude has some drawbacks.

One of the most obvious, teeth-clenching moments comes when a player seems unwilling to put a puck on net. Whether it’s a 2-on-1 that short circuits because the forwards “got too cute” with one-too-many passes or a defenseman whose point shots rarely make it to the net because they’ve telegraphed their attempts, there are times when it’s flat-out frustrating to watch this unselfishness in action. (Maybe there’s an element of players preserving their shooting percentages, too, but we’d like to think that isn’t a frequent concern.)

Soon-to-be-outgoing Minnesota Wild coach Todd Richards cringed when people used the same trap-happy label for his more wide-open team last season, but the bottom line was that the Wild didn’t have the weapons to justify opening things up. The hockey blogosphere has been flushwith debate regarding the true “winner” of the deal that sent Martin Havlat to San Jose in exchange for Dany Heatley, but it seems like the Wild are finally willing to dive into the deep end after a couple years of dipping their toes in the shallow end of the pool when it comes to opening things up.

It might be a loss in the grand scheme of things; Havlat is a little bit more versatile than Heatley and losing Brent Burns could really hurt a Wild blueline that lacks any apparent dynamism. That being said, the Wild obviously needed a change and those two blockbuster trades will provide that (if nothing else).

Shooooot!

To keep the stats talk simple yet relevant, the Wild were regularly out-shot last season. They produced a league-worst 26.2 shots per game while giving up an average of 32 shots (tied for sixth-worst in the NHL with the New York Islanders). That works out to a league-worst -5.8 shot differential, with only the lowly Edmonton Oilers’ -5 being comparable.

The Wild would be dreaming pretty big if they thought that Heatley and Setoguchi could improve their odds in the shots allowed category. Thankfully, Wild GM Chuck Fletcher expressed more realistic expectations when he introduced Heatley and Setoguchi today: the Wild want them to shoot and score goals in large portions. Setoguchi expressed his objective in an almost comically single-minded way, as you can see from Michael Russo’s quotes.

On his game: You’re going to find that I’m just going to shoot the puck. That’s all what I try to do. I get the puck, I shoot it. I don’t hold onto it, I don’t make nice, really sweet plays with it. I just shoot it. I’m going to skate and shoot and hit, and that’s my plan.

Expectations from Chuck and Mike: Nowadays in the game, you’ve got to shoot the puck. The game’s quicker. Goalies are better. Teams are better. In order to be a successful team, you’ve got to shoot the puck, you’ve got to get shots. I think I can shoot the puck more, and I know that’s what they want us to do, and that’s what I’m going to do.

(snip)

Describe your game: It’s pretty simple what you’re going to get from me. I like to play north-south. I like to use my speed, get in on the forecheck, really be tenacious and puck hungry. And I like to shoot. So you’re going to get some speed, you’re going to get a little bit of physicality and just a player that likes to play a hard game and score some goals every once in awhile.

Wait, so will Setoguchi shoot a lot or not? He keeps beating around the bush about it …

For those of you who might want to see things in black-and-white terms, Setoguchi averaged 2.67 shots per game in his career while Heatley averages about 3.1 per game. Havlat (2.57 per game) isn’t a slouch in that area either; in fact, he put more pucks on net (229) than Heatley (217) or Setoguchi (199) did in 2010-11. That being said, it might be a matter of mindset more than anything else (plus, in the simplest way, they’ll get more shots combined from Heatley and Setoguchi than they would from Havlat and Burns, even if Burns shoots pretty frequently for a blueliner).

Heatley’s hit the 300 shot mark twice in his career and Setoguchi topped out at 246 in 2008-09. Mysteriously enough, those years also ranked as the best offensive outputs of their careers. Maybe the two wingers were shackled a bit by San Jose’s shift to a more defense-minded scheme. If nothing else, the Wild could profit from letting both of them loose. Worst case scenario, the Wild are trying something different. We’ll find out next season if different will mean better.

New York Islanders forward Josh Ho-Sang provided an interesting take to Newsday’s Arthur Staple, and also reminded observes that, as an international sport, the NHL features some players who might not feel as invested in (or at least as informed about) these debates.

“I think what the NFL players are doing is amazing. It’s good that they’re all sticking together,” Ho-Sang said on Monday. “I mean, I’m Canadian, so I don’t have too much input on the matter itself. It will affect me living in the States, but the biggest thing is it’s unfortunate that the message may have gotten lost a little. Now it’s becoming a battle between the NFL and the president and originally [the protests] started because of police brutality and the mistreatment of different races.”

“Protecting the First Amendment is a huge thing,” Okposo said. “I’m a proud American, and I’m proud to be from the United States. Myself personally, I wouldn’t kneel for an anthem, but I respect those that do.”

***

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen the current political climate affect NHL players or people they know.

Players in plenty of sports are navigating tough questions this week. It’s important to remember that athletes can find themselves in tough spots when addressing topics that can be polarizing and/or complex.

Can't imagine being 20 years old, talking to a pack of reporters about controversial protests, knowing that any misstep releases the hounds.

With the regular season about to kick into gear on Oct. 4, it’s certain that there will be more eyes on anthems than ever before. The insights in this post should be useful, whether NHL players kneel, sit, speak, or decide to stick to hockey.

The key: after only being able to study brains of deceased athletes, there’s a chance that living athletes with CTE might eventually be identified.

On face value, that’s great news for player health. Hockey, like other contact sports such as football, is no stranger to careers and lives being derailed by brain injuries.

Of course, the NHL and NHLPA would need to cooperate to make the most of potential progress. If you’ve watched hockey long enough, particularly postseason hockey, you know that certain protocols can stand as great concepts met with hesitant execution.

Westhead expounds on such thoughts, and some of his findings aren’t very pretty.

Players might be hesitant to take such tests if it means that they’ll miss playing time (or even see their careers end). It brings back memories of Peyton Manning willfully sandbagging his baseline concussion test. For better or worse, these guys want to play.

NHL player agent: “If I asked 30 of my players if they would take a test to tell them if they have CTE, I think zero would be interested."

Of course, it’s crucial to realize that potential breakthroughs from this study could take quite some time to trickle into functional practices, even if leagues and players end up being more willing to comply than expected.

Overall, this is promising news. Hopefully such changes could help athletes during their careers and into retirement.

Sprong, 20, was the 46th pick of the 2015 NHL Draft. He’s been generating solid numbers at the OHL, so it will be interesting to see how he converts that to AHL work. Sprong played 18 regular-season games for the Penguins back in 2015-16, notching two goals.

There are some bullet points that can sell Nolan, but the 28-year-old’s production was quite limited at the NHL level. Nolan’s never scored 10 goals in a single season; in fact, he’s only reached 10 points once in his career (six goals and four assists in 64 regular-season contests back in 2013-14).

Overall, it wouldn’t be surprising if a team targeted Nolan as a depth guy, even if his ceiling is limited.

While the Penguins’ entries seem notable for sheer volume as much as anything else, Frank Corrado is another name that stands out.

Corrado was often the catalyst for debates about his playing time (or lack thereof) with the Toronto Maple Leafs, but it doesn’t seem like the defenseman is having much success catching on with the Penguins, either.

Zatkoff, meanwhile, fits in with quite a few other names on this list: possibly prominent in the AHL, only likely to get the occasional cup of coffee in the NHL, at this point.